On Thu, 17 Sep 1998, Amadeus Schmidt wrote:

> High protein diets *do* cause an acidification of the body,
> wich has to cope with it in some way.
> The bone loss also is only one possible disadvantage
> of body acidification. More negative strains on the
> metabolism are presumed in literature.

They may be *presumed* in the literature, but they are not
*documented*.  This is a case where a priori reasoning says one
thing but observations of real-life phenomena do not confirm it.

> Anyway this *is* a disadvantage of over protein
> consumption. If you eat over protein for the mere
> purpose of caloric supply - as you tell us to do-
> then you have this disadvantage without any advantage.
> Therefore it would be better to get *at least* caloric
> supply from fats or carbs.
> *That* was my point.

Actually I don't think Ilya was recommending high protein intake
for calories.  Perhaps I missed that part.  I do think he
recommends it for building muscle mass.  Here you are presuming
that protein intake over a certain low level must be used as
calories, but you have yet to document that assertion.  I have
searched hard in the literature in recent weeks for support for
such a claim, but can't find it.

> I'd like to add here that I'd consider todays *average*
> protein consumption in western countries as way too much.

But you recognize that people such as Cordain and Eaton believe
that average paleolithic protein consumption was considerably
higher.  They even recognize the "paradox" that despite this
fact, paleolithic bone density was high.

But here's a point to consider.  The body can only *utilize*
about 35g of protein at a meal.  That's about 5 ounces of lean
meat.  Anything beyond that causes a greater insulin response and
is stored as fat or burned inefficiently as fuel.  That is, the
normal insulin response to protein is only 40% of the response to
carbs, but this is true only for amounts of 35g or less.  Beyond
that, the insulin response to beef quickly becomes comparable to
that of carbs.  This is well documented and has definite
implications.  Those who want to make maximum use of protein for
cell maintenance and who want to lose weight should eat small
portions of protein spaced throughout the day.  Bodybuilders know
this and often eat 5 or 6 meals a day.

According to Sears, the insulin response to a meal also goes up
disproportionately as the caloric total for that meal exceeds
500, no matter what the macronutrient content is -- even fat.
Unlike the 35g protein limit, I have not yet found documentation
for this claim.  If one does eat 35g of protein at a meal, that
comes to about 157 calories.  It's not clear to me whether that
should be counted against the caloric total or not, since in
principle that protein should not be burned as fuel.  This means
that either 343 or 500 additional calories should come from fats
or carbs, and that's it.  I'm really not sure if Sears is right
about this, but it is another argument for smaller, more frequent
meals, at least for weight loss, and probably for lipid control
too, since the insulin would play a role in this.

Todd Moody
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